Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 22 November.

Top stories

Daniel Andrews, the Victorian premier, and his Liberal challenger, Matthew Guy have clashed over law and order in the first and only televised debate of the state election campaign. With days left before the vote on Saturday, Andrews was forced to defend the decision of police to bail the Bourke Street attacker. Guy claimed that Hassan Khalif Shire Ali would have been behind bars for earlier offences under his proposed reforms. But Andrews hit back, saying the proposal went too far and that the Liberals would “build nothing but prisons” if they won power.

You can also check out Gay Alcorn’s profile of Andrews, the Labor incumbent who may lack the charm of some previous holders of the office but who has a progressive record that he is happy to defend.

The Australian Bali Nine member Renae Lawrence, who has served 13 years for drug smuggling,has been released from Indonesia’s Bangli prison and has landed back in Australia after spending more than 13 years behind bars. Lawrence arrived in Brisbane this morning after leaving prison amid chaotic scenes on Wednesday afternoon. A local doctor who visits Bangli prison was reported to have prescribed antidepressants to help Lawrence cope with anxiety before her long-awaited chance for a new start in life. When she returns, Lawrence is facing two arrest warrants from NSW police that have been outstanding since 2005. On Wednesday the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, said he had no sympathy for Lawrence and rejected suggestions she should be shown leniency.

Turkey has accused the US of trying to turn a blind eye to the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, and dismissed comments from Donald Trump on the issue as “comic”. Trump has pledged America will remain a “steadfast partner” of Saudi Arabia and said of Crown Prince Mohammed’s alleged involvement in the murder “maybe he did, maybe he didn’t”. Numan Kurtulmuş, the deputy chairman of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AK party, dismissed Trump’s assessment. “It is not possible for an intelligence agency such as the CIA, which even knows the colour of the fur on the cat walking around the Saudi consulate’s garden … to not know who gave this order,” he said. “This is not credible.”

Refugees are increasingly being driven to self-harm and suicide by the continuing miserable conditions of Australia’s offshore immigration detention system, a new report from Amnesty International and the Refugee Council of Australia has said. The report criticised cuts to health and counselling services, and the “heavily securitised” environment of the new accommodation, as well as the lack of protection for the more than 600 men still on Manus. Claire Mallinson, the national director of Amnesty International Australia, said the worsening health and safety on Manus demonstrated that Australia’s offshore processing system had failed.

Labor will offer a rebate of up to $2,000 for households earning less than $180,000 to install residential battery systems, as part of its revamped energy policy if it wins the next federal election. Bill Shorten will unveil the program, which is slated to start in 2020 and cost $140.9m over the forward estimates, today when he will also commit to keeping the Coalition’s national energy guarantee, with a higher emissions reduction target of 45%. Shorten will also outline an alternative set of measures to the Neg in the event that the Liberals refuse to support their own policy mechanism.

The NSW parliament will today debate whether it should create a “Walama court” for sentencing Indigenous people. The approach is supported by the state’s police and lawyers, who say it would help stop “spiralling rates of Indigenous incarceration”. The Berejiklian government opposes the plan. The couirt would deliver community-based sentencing so the judge would closely monitor an offender’s progress and sentences would include an intensive period of supervision by Corrective Services.

Sport

Australia has beaten India in the first “superb” match of the T20 series in a rain-hit match in Brisbane. Australia won by four runs, with the next two matches of the three-match series scheduled for Friday and Sunday.

Sport is being used to help facilitate development in children in Melbourne with special needs – and it’s having serious success. “A lot of these kids have never been successful in sport but now they’re having fun, making friends and enjoying sport,” says Jake Du Chateau, who runs the clinic. “You can always see from the smiles on their faces after a session just how much they’re getting out of it.”

Thinking time

Could life drawing be the antidote to a lack of empathy – perhaps the most persistent symptom of the internet age?Nathan Dunne thinks so: he rediscovered his capacity for empathy after spending hours in a dusty room with other would-be artists. “I have found life drawing to be a pocket of time away from the screen, one in which a small group of people are intensely drawn to real bodies,” he writes. “Skinny, fat, muscled, scarred, bald, tattooed, hairy. Each presents its own challenge for those behind the easels, but one that has allowed me, in a sense, to become other people.”

The attack on welfare over the past decade or more has led to a massive level of stigma being attached to those who receive government cash assistance, writes Greg Jericho, as well as the implication that it is wasted money. But, as the government attempts to move towards a flatter income tax regime, the level of taxation raised will be significantly reduced. Yet welfare services are vital not just to the lives of those who receive them, but to the underpinnings of our society. It is a fight that cannot be afford to be lost.

What’s he done now?

Not satisfied with backing Mohammed bin Salman, Donald Trump has praised Saudi Arabia on Twitter, thanking the country for its role in lowering oil prices: “Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let’s go lower!”

Media roundup

A police investigation into Labor’s red shirts affair has been systematically undermined, the Age reports, with the the office of public prosecutions unlikely to make a recommendation on whether to proceed with criminal charges against a dozen Labor MPs before this weekend’s election. The Australian reports that police investigating the death of a nine-month old baby are exploring whether the child’s father “sacrificed” the girl. The child’s father, a homeless man, is understood to have told police he believed the baby was possessed by demons, the paper reports. A Hobart man who has been repeatedly attacked by his neighbours’ bees wants the council to amend laws enacted two years ago that made backyard beekeeping operations easier, the ABC reports.

Coming up

Julie Bishop will detail challenges facing the Liberal party and what it needs to do to attract modern-day voters in a speech in Melbourne.

Westpac’s CEO, Brian Hartzer continues, his evidence at the banking royal commission’s policy hearing in Sydney, with Macquarie Group’s CEO, Nicholas Moore, due to appear later.

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